ø - Razorcake

MONEY
MONEY
In the olden days of sail, unruly seamen
could expect to be punished swiftly and severely,
but the punishment was probably not as gruesome
or barbaric as we have been led to believe.
The easiest way to discipline a sailor was to
threaten to take away his rum or tobacco ration.
When this didn’t produce the desired results
(and it almost always did) life afloat without a
daily draught of grog or pinch of tobacco soon
brought the scoundrel to his senses.
Only in extreme cases like theft was it necessary
to resort to corporal punishment. The
thief was tied to the mainmast – the symbol of
the Captain’s sexual power – and beaten with
whatever was handy, usually a rope end. Scenes
of jack-tars being brutally flogged were rare.
Able-bodied seamen were difficult to replace in
the middle of long ocean voyages, and it was
impractical to incapacitate the help.
Though such displays were less frequent
than Hollywood would have us believe, history
tells us it was not unheard of for captains to flog
their men just for shits and giggles. When a flogging
was unavoidable, it was turned into a gaudy
spectacle to humiliate the offending seaman
before his mates, thereby deterring them from
following his example. Over time, the dispensing
of punishment became as solemn as a court
proceeding, as ceremonial as a theatrical production
and as ritualized as a visit to a high-end
boudoir.
That all changed in 1840 when Richard
Henry Dana. Jr. published Two Years Before the
Mast, a stirring account of his voyage around the
Horn from Boston to California. Dana, a common
seaman, witnessed a flogging while his
brig, the Pilgrim, was anchored off San Pedro.
Thereafter he pledged to “do something to
redress the grievances and relieve the sufferings”
of working seaman everywhere, and his
wildly popular narrative brought flogging to the
public’s attention. By 1850, corporal punishment
was banned aboard all Navy vessels.
Thus, thanks to Dana, the security personnel
who intercepted me the fateful night I decided to
assault base security guards in San Diego made
sure they got their licks in before I was brought
into custody. The Navy may have eliminated the
lash, but they sure as hell didn’t spare the rod
when I was face down and spread eagle on the
asphalt, clearly resisting arrest.
They hauled me on board in handcuffs and
leg restraints and presented to the Officer of the
Deck, who sent me below to the forward crew’s
lounge where I was presided over by a specially
assigned watch until I sobered up.
42
LAZY MICK
is often included in the ranks of protest literature, and it deserves its place there.
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
At least, this is what they told me.
I spent the next few days fretting over my
fate. The trouble that had been shadowing me
for over a year had finally arrived, and there was
no ducking out of it this time. I would have to
stand before The Man and take my licks.
Once the charges were officially drawn up,
the master-at-arms summoned me to the goat
locker where I was paraded before an assembly
of chief petty officers. Although they had the
power to dismiss the charges if they felt they
were not worthy of further investigation, they
never did.
The master-at-arms announced which articles
of the Uniform Code of Military Justice I’d
violated, and it was a long list. Assaulting a military
police officer. Resisting arrest. Drunk and
disorderly. Refusing to submit military ID.
Disobeying a direct order. The longer the master-at-arms
read, the more embarrassed I
became, and then he got to the kicker: threatening
a military police officer. It wasn’t so much
that I’d made threats, it was the ridiculous nature
of my threat, which he then read: “If I had a dollar,
I’d kick your ass.”
This produced more than a few grins and
chuckles among the lifers smoking cigarettes
and drinking coffee, but Chief Cleveland put a
stop to that.
“Do you think this is funny?”
“No, Chief,” I said.
“You’re damn right it isn’t,” he snapped,
although clearly many of his peers disagreed; on
the contrary, they thought it was fucking hysterical.
Next I was brought before the XO, the second
in command, who was in charge of conducting
a formal inquiry into the matter. He, too,
could dismiss the charges but the chances of that
happening were slim to nil.
The master-at-arms read off the charges
again while the XO surveyed my paperwork.
When he got to the part about me being a badass
short of a buck, he shook his head and glared at
me.
My father was the XO on his last surface
command. When I asked him what his job
entailed he told me it was about dealing with the
details so the CO didn’t have to. He used to
complain that he spent 90% of his time dealing
with the 10% of the crew who were dirtbags –
his word – and the remaining 10% with the 90%
who were good guys. If there was any doubt
before there was none now: I was officially one
of the dirtbags.
The next day they scheduled Captain’s